In recent years, a digital camera has been widely used as a next generation camera replacing a silver salt 35 mm film camera. Recently, there has been increasing reduction in size, and thinning of a digital camera. Moreover, a camera function (hereinafter called as ‘image pickup module’) has been provided even in a portable telephone, the use of which has also been increasing widely. For mounting this image pickup module in the portable telephone, an optical system has to be smaller and thinner than an optical system of the digital camera. Particularly, in a zoom lens, the reduction in size, and thinning has been sought. However, a zoom lens having a size reduced so as to mount in the portable telephone has not been known much.
As a typical means for reducing the size and thinning of the zoom lens, the following two means can be taken into consideration. In other words,
A. To use a collapsible lens barrel, and to accommodate the optical system in a thickness (depth) of a casing. This collapsible lens barrel is a lens barrel having a structure in which the optical system protrudes from a camera casing, and is accommodated in the camera casing while carrying.
B. To accommodate the optical system in a direction of width or in a direction of height by adopting a dioptric system. This dioptric system is an optical system having a structure in which an optical path (optical axis) of the optical system is folded by a reflecting optical element such as a mirror or a prism.
However, in the structure in which the abovementioned means A is used, the number of lenses forming the optical system or the number of movable lens group is more, and it is difficult to carry out the reduction in size, and the thinning.
Moreover, in the structure in which the abovementioned means B is used, it is easy to make the casing thin as compared to a case in which the means in the abovementioned A is used, but an amount of movement of the movable lens group at the time of varying the power, and the number of lenses forming the optical system tend to increase. Therefore, volumetrically, it is not at all suitable for the reduction in size.